41 Responses to Must-See Goal: Gareth Bale

My first reaction was that the defender didn’t run very hard. but upon further consideration, he was running pretty hard and bale just blew by him. Then i wondered if maybe he was a late sub and just had more juice in his legs, but no, he played the whole game. Not the prettiest of goals, but kudos for effort

bartra’s returning from injury–he wasn’t even supposed to be back for this game, except that puyol (of course) and pique are out. that said, he should’ve taken bale out; you don’t get into a footrace with the fastest guy on the field.

Breathtaking. Absolutely positively one of the greatest goals ever. Did not notice yesterday, but on watching the replay Messi was not doing a very good job on defense to try to slow down the counterattack.

The defending really wasn’t that bad, aside from that he probably should have just fouled him when he knew he was going to get burned. Bale is one of the fastest players in the world, no one is going to beat him in a foot race, especially if he has a full head of steam to start.

Also, as far as the nutmeg goes, that’s really not bad goalkeeping. There’s no way you can be in athletic stance (ready to dive either direction) without having your legs wide enough for the ball to go through, or without leaving one post horribly open. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t – don’t blame the keeper.

I don’t particularly understand why people insist that a ball going through the legs of a keeper is terrible goalkeeping…Keepers are taught to make themselves big on one-on-ones, which means you’re legs will be apart. When a ball is kicked from such a point blank range, I don’t think there’s a person in the world who could react fast enough to stop it.

Would you prefer that he stood straight up and provided wide-open shots to both the near and far post?!

Yawn. You are putting less and less effort into your trolling these days “Ted Tran”. Hopefully “ZTom” will jump in here soon and give some hot tips on flag-burning, defeatism, and negativity for a more fresh-minded group of passive-aggressive nonentities.

Again, goalkeeping wasn’t bad at all. Looking at it, his positioning is actually fantastic, as Bale had little angle on either post. There’s no way to block both angles, be as large as possible, be crouched and ready to dive, and keep your legs < 1 foot apart.

Try running and crouching with your hands an inch above the ground, with your legs too narrow to let the ball through.

Its a tremendous and historic effort from Bale no matter what, but it does appear that Bartra was injured and that contributed to Bale’s perceived pull-away speed (and probably, Bartra’s inabilioty to hack him a second time). Also, Pinto should have attacked the ball as soon as he saw Bale cut in. Bale almost flubbed it as it was. A+ for effort and taking the moment by the horns. But Pinto really should have done better there and you have to wonder if Valdes would have.